Assessment of General Education

For each General Education category, rubrics have been developed by the General Education Faculty Boards (Development of the Assessment for UMD General Education, 2012-2015), supported by the Office of Undergraduate Studies and the Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment with the course instructors upon review of the AAC&U VALUE rubrics and according to standards determined by the Faculty Boards for student performance in the General Education courses. The rubrics define the standards for student performance in General Education courses at the University of Maryland. The rubrics are designed to be a tool to support Assessment of General Education.

Assessment of General Education

Each General Education category is grounded in a set of learning outcomes. The learning outcomes serve as the basis for design of general education courses and guide the assessment of student learning.

This assessment approach is a criterion-based assessment that aims to integrate the assessment process with the normal practices of teaching and curriculum development, and to articulate the criteria important for meeting General Education learning outcomes. The Assessment Planning Team that serves to oversee and support the assessment includes the following: from the Office of Undergraduate Studies, Associate Provost and Dean William A. Cohen, Associate Dean Douglas Roberts, Associate Dean Cynthia Kay Stevens, Assistant Dean Ann C. Smith; from the Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment, Assistant Vice President Sharon A. La Voy; from the Teaching and Learning Transformation Center, Associate Provost of Learning Initiatives Ben Bederson; and from the Division of Information Technology, Executive Director, Academic Technology & Innovation Marcio A. Oliveira.

About the General Education rubrics:

The General Education rubrics serve several purposes related to assessment:

Provide information to instructors who wish to develop courses to meet General Education requirements.

Reveal to students and others the goals and expectations of General Education courses.

Serve as a tool for faculty to explore how well their courses meet the selected General Education learning outcomes by using the rubric to assess student work.

UMD General Education rubrics (listed above) will be available in ELMS for faculty who are teaching a General Education course. In ELMS, faculty may link the selected rubric for assessment of an assignment. Faculty may use the ELMS speedgrader tool to record assessment data. As noted above, the Instructions for General Education Assessment document will assist in using ELMS for assessment.

Each semester the Office of Undergraduate Studies will survey faculty teaching General Education courses regarding their use of the rubrics and for comments on how the assessment process has been used to improve student learning.

The goal of this assessment approach is to help faculty assess their courses and identify strategies to help move students toward higher performance levels on key learning outcomes. Note that General Education rubrics do not address all of the learning outcomes of a particular General Education category. The outcomes selected for assessment were determined by the Faculty Boards. Faculty may find that the UMD General Education rubrics are not written in discipline specific language. Faculty are encouraged to explain the language in the rubric to their students in the context of the course discipline. As faculty determine what aspects of the course to assess, they may decide not to asses all of the criteria of the rubric. Faculty are encouraged to use this tool in a manner that best suits their needs.